第49章 THE MEXICAN(6)

He remembered that he had heard his father call the dye-rooms the "suicide-holes," where a year was death.He saw the little patio, and his mother cooking and moiling at crude housekeeping and finding time to caress and love him.And his father he saw, large, big-moustached and deep-chested, kindly above all men, who loved all men and whose heart was so large that there was love to overflowing still left for the mother and the little muchacho playing in the corner of the patio.In those days his name had not been Felipe Rivera.It had been Fernandez, his father's and mother's name.Him had they called Juan.Later, he had changed it himself, for he had found the name of Fernandez hated by prefects of police, jefes politicos, and rurales.

Big, hearty Joaquin Fernandez! A large place he occupied in Rivera's visions.He had not understood at the time, but looking back he could understand.He could see him setting type in the little printery, or scribbling endless hasty, nervous lines on the much-cluttered desk.And he could see the strange evenings, when workmen, coming secretly in the dark like men who did ill deeds, met with his father and talked long hours where he, the muchacho, lay not always asleep in the corner.

As from a remote distance he could hear Spider Hagerty saying to him: "No layin' down at the start.Them's instructions.Take a beatin' and earn your dough."Ten minutes had passed, and he still sat in his comer.There were no signs of Danny, who was evidently playing the trick to the limit.

But more visions burned before the eye of Rivera's memory.The strike, or, rather, the lockout, because the workers of Rio Blanco had helped their striking brothers of Puebla.The hunger, the expeditions in the hills for berries, the roots and herbs that all ate and that twisted and pained the stomachs of all of them.And then, the nightmare; the waste of ground before the company's store; the thousands of starving workers;General Rosalio Martinez and the soldiers of Porfirio Diaz, and the death-spitting rifles that seemed never to cease spitting, while the workers' wrongs were washed and washed again in their own blood.And that night! He saw the flat cars, piled high with the bodies of the slain, consigned to Vera Cruz, food for the sharks of the bay.Again he crawled over the grisly heaps, seeking and finding, stripped and mangled, his father and his mother.His mother he especially remembered--only her face projecting, her body burdened by the weight of dozens of bodies.Again the rifles of the soldiers of Porfirio Diaz cracked, and again he dropped to the ground and slunk away like some hunted coyote of the hills.

To his ears came a great roar, as of the sea, and he saw Danny Ward, leading his retinue of trainers and seconds, coming down the center aisle.The house was in wild uproar for the popular hero who was bound to win.Everybody proclaimed him.Everybody was for him.Even Rivera's own seconds warmed to something akin to cheerfulness when Danny ducked jauntily through the ropes and entered the ring.His face continually spread to an unending succession of smiles, and when Danny smiled he smiled in every feature, even to the laughter-wrinkles of the corners of the eyes and into the depths of the eyes themselves.Never was there so genial a fighter.His face was a running advertisement of good feeling, of good fellowship.He knew everybody.He joked, and laughed, and greeted his friends through the ropes.Those farther away, unable to suppress their admiration, cried loudly: "Oh, you Danny!" It was a joyous ovation of affection that lasted a full five minutes.

Rivera was disregarded.For all that the audience noticed, he did not exist.Spider Lagerty's bloated face bent down close to his.

"No gettin' scared," the Spider warned.

"An' remember instructions.You gotta last.No layin' down.If you lay down, we got instructions to beat you up in the dressing rooms.Savve? You just gotta fight."The house began to applaud.Danny was crossing the ring to him.

Danny bent over, caught Rivera's right hand in both his own and shook it with impulsive heartiness.Danny's smile-wreathed face was close to his.The audience yelled its appreciation of Danny's display of sporting spirit.He was greeting his opponent with the fondness of a brother.Danny's lips moved, and the audience, interpreting the unheard words to be those of a kindly-natured sport, yelled again.Only Rivera heard the low words.

"You little Mexican rat," hissed from between Danny's gaily smiling lips, "I'll fetch the yellow outa you."Rivera made no move.He did not rise.He merely hated with his eyes.

"Get up, you dog!" some man yelled through the ropes from behind.

The crowd began to hiss and boo him for his unsportsmanlike conduct, but he sat unmoved.Another great outburst of applause was Danny's as he walked back across the ring.

When Danny stripped, there was ohs! and ahs! of delight.His body was perfect, alive with easy suppleness and health and strength.The skin was white as a woman's, and as smooth.All grace, and resilience, and power resided therein.He had proved it in scores of battles.His photographs were in all the physical culture magazines.

A groan went up as Spider Hagerty peeled Rivera's sweater over his head.His body seemed leaner, because of the swarthiness of the skin.He had muscles, but they made no display like his opponent's.What the audience neglected to see was the deep chest.Nor could it guess the toughness of the fiber of the flesh, the instantaneousness of the cell explosions of the muscles, the fineness of the nerves that wired every part of him into a spendid fighting mechanism.All the audience saw was a brown-skinned boy of eighteen with what seemed the body of a boy.With Danny it was different.Danny was a man of twenty-four, and his body was a man's body.The contrast was still more striking as they stood together in the center of the ring receiving the referee's last instructions.